Sightseeing

One person was injured Sunday when a double-deck sightseeing bus operated by the Chicago Motor Coach company hit an overhead obstruction downtown. A company official confirmed the accident occurred but refused to provide any other details of the accident. "Nobody was killed. I can`t say anything more or my insurance company will kill me," the bus company spokesman, who also refused to give his name, said Sunday.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Seventy-six people were rescued on Sunday from a sightseeing vessel that ran aground in Alaska's Glacier Bay and began filling with water, the U.S. Coast Guard said. None of the passengers and crew members aboard the 79-foot (24.1-meter) Baranof Wind was seriously hurt, though some minor injuries were reported, Coast Guard Petty Officer David Mosley said. Most of the passengers were safely transferred to a large Holland America cruise...

A tour helicopter crashed Wednesday into a mountain on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, killing all five people on board, authorities said. The wreckage was spotted around noon at about 4,300 feet on Mt. Waialeale, police said. The helicopter went down in a crater on the peak's eastern face known as the rainiest spot on Earth. Four people died in the crash, authorities said. The fifth, a woman, died hours later as rescue crews tried to airlift her from the site. Victims' names were not released.

In my early days, I earned my plane ticket to Europe by working as an escort for a bus tour company. On one tour, I was paired with German guide Monica, a hardened, chain-smoking woman in her 50s who plotted potty breaks as if on a military campaign. She could sense the pain in your bladder even before you got the nerve to raise your hand. Clenching the mic, she'd splice in a terse "cross your legs" midway through a lecture on Mad King Ludwig. Thanks to Monica, I developed an appreciation of tour...

A funny thing happened to the Lakers on the way to their Saturday morning shootaround. They took a tour of the nation's capital instead. Sleepy-eyed from a 3 a.m. arrival in Washington as they prepared for their fourth game in five nights, the players and coaches clambered on the team bus expecting to head to practice. Instead, they got a 45-minute sightseeing trip. Coach Phil Jackson told no one in advance -- except for the bus driver. "I was kind of asleep," Andrew Bynum...

LONDON — The Bears arrived Friday morning more intent on winning a football game than on becoming global stars in a market dominated by soccer. If they had brought William "Refrigerator" Perry along for the journey, he would have stepped off the charter flight at Heathrow Airport as the most popular man of the bunch, a result of the last trip here by the team in 1986 when the Bears were Super Bowl champions. "Fridge was a terrific guy and a very good football player, but it's amazing," Mike...

Some of Southeast Asia's most alluring wonders are on display during Friendly Planet's 11-day Exotic Borneo & Bangkok tour, which begins on the Malaysian island filled with rain forests and indigenous tribes. The Borneo leg of the trip includes a tour of wildlife-packed Bako National Park and Bako, a fishing village built on stilts; boat rides on the South China Sea and the Batang Ai Reservoir; a visit to the Semengok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre; and a longboat cruise down the Engkari River to an Iban...

Tourists have as much right to ride the rails as anyone, a northern Michigan judge says. Emmet County Circuit Judge Richard Pajtas ruled last week that the Bay View Association can`t block the Alanson & Petoskey Railroad from sightseeing runs through the historic Lake Michigan neighborhood. The neighborhood association bought the railroad property in 1983 from Penn Central Corp., but signed a deed giving Penn Central and its successors the right to run trains on the rail. The group...

"Private Practice" star Taye Diggs and Broadway performer Idina Menzel welcomed a son, Walker Diggs, on Wednesday, the couple's reps confirmed to People.com. ... Singer Lisa Loeb of "Stay" fame and husband Roey Hershkovitz are expecting their first child, People.com reported. The baby is due in the winter. ... Madonna has wrapped up her world tour with a sightseeing trip to Jordan's famed ruins in Petra arranged by Queen Rania, the wife of King Abdullah II.

A 13-year-old Georgia boy ducked out of school last week, took a bus to the airport and sneaked onto an L.A.-bound plane. But he didn't get to do much sightseeing: Authorities met him in L.A., then escorted him on a flight home.

As debate over his health care reform plans rages around the country, President Barack Obama will take off on a family vacation later this week that will combine classic American sightseeing with the challenge of trying to sell his ideas to a western audience. While visiting national parks with his wife and daughters starting Friday, the president also plans to hold town hall meetings in Colorado and Montana to address problems of...

The Grand Canyon is the most popular site in the country for sightseeing tours by helicopter, edging the Hawaiian Islands, according to a trade association survey. Nearly 250,000 people saw the mile-deep canyon by helicopter last year, accounting for 28 percent of all sightseeing passengers carried by helicopter tour operators, Helicopter Association International said. The trade association, based in Alexandria, Va., conducted the survey to show the popularity of helicopter...

A sightseeing helicopter and a small plane collided and crashed into the murky Hudson River off lower Manhattan on Saturday, killing all nine people on the aircraft and underscoring the perils of uncontrolled airspace in the busy corridor. Hours after the crash, which occurred about noon as sunbathers, bicyclists, joggers and tourists crowded the parks lining both sides of the river, divers and search boats were scouring the water for wreckage and victims. Though the water was...

Everybody loves a parade. But what if you want to be the parade? No problem, according to Chuck Huser, manager of Associated Attractions in Chicago. If you`ve got the cash, he`ll rent you a parade float for a couple of hours and you can play beauty queen or grand marshal to your heart's content. Just don`t kid yourself that you`re the first person to think of this; Huser says a few brides and grooms (who clearly do not know the meaning of the word "demure") have beat you...

To some, the thought of spending nine hours a day listening to tourists babble on about how they didn't know Chicago was on a lake or how they thought the city was full of "SNL's" Superfan clones or other such silliness sounds like torture. But Walt Chadick is not most people. Chadick, a 38-year-old Arkansas native who lives in Ukrainian Village, is a tour guide and tour guide trainer for Chicago Trolley and Double Decker, a company that shuttles tourists around the city in its 75 San Francisco-style...

A helicopter offering sightseeing rides clipped power lines and crashed into a river, killing two of the five people aboard. Hours after the Saturday night crash in Oklahoma's Cimarron River, three people were killed Sunday morning in a helicopter crash south of Atlanta. The Oklahoma helicopter crashed into water about 5 feet deep after hitting three power lines, said Aaron Sauer of the National Transportation Safety Board. It had taken off from an Elks Lodge about in...

Taiwan will send its 21 best street cleaners to Singapore Friday to learn how to sweep streets, the Taiwan Provincial Government Department said Thursday. The 21 cleaners were chosen from the island's 14,000 street sweepers. Criteria included a minimum 10-year work experience, low absenteeism and some outstanding deeds to prove their good performance. "Street cleaners have no chance of traveling abroad. So we give them a free trip as an award," said Hsiao...